2018 Spring/Summer Course Offerings

History Matters: Indigenous, Colonial and Post- colonial Histories

HIST 125.3(01)

Instructor: Carling Beninger

Courses in this series examine the peoples and processes shaping indigenous societies, their imperial rulers, and the postcolonial experience. Topics will range from local case studies of First Nations to broader histories of European imperial expansion and national independence movements. The problems of identity, power and policy are at the forefront of these investigations, emphasizing the ways that communities accepted, resisted or transformed colonial agendas. Courses will also foreground variations among colonizing projects, and responses to them, in different eras. Examples of course foci include Britain and British Empires since Caesar, the Arab Spring, the scramble for Africa, aboriginal activism in Canada, USA, and Australia, a global history of slavery, perspectives on community and sovereignty in North America, and colonial Latin America. All courses will emphasize how historians have understood different practices of colonization and their relationship to political, economic and social change.

Offered: May 9 - 30, MTWTF 1:30-3:50

Roman Civilization

CLAS 111.3 (05)

Instructor: Ann DeVito

Surveys Roman culture in the Republican and Imperial periods, based on readings in translation from Roman literature and on other ancient source materials.

Offered: June 4 - 22, MTWRF 11:00-1:20

History Matters: War, Violence and Politics

HIST 145.3(01)

Instructor TBD

Courses in this series examine the history of war and violence, cutting across periods and historical specializations. Areas of exploration may include the factors that have shaped human conflict (social, cultural, political, and religious); specific cases, campaigns or systems of conflict (including interpersonal, intergroup, and international violence); wars hot and cold; historic forms of oppression and injustice, and their relationship to conflict; and the history of resistance to interpersonal, intergroup and systemic violence including the history of peace and reconciliation and non-violent movements.

Offered: June 4 - 22, MTWRF 1:30-3:50

Women in Antiquity

CLAS 225.3 (01)

Instructor: Ann DeVito

Studies the life and achievements of women in the ancient world.

Offered: June 28 – July 19, MTWTF 11:00-1:20

History Matters: Science and Environment

HIST 155.3(01)

Instructor: TBD

Courses in this series examine the history and conceptualization of science, the cosmos, or the environment and their relationships to society and culture. The term science is understood broadly to include not only modern science but pre-modern and non-western approaches to understanding and manipulating the natural world. Historians focus on the human history of the environment, with a particular attention to the ever-changing relationship between societies and their ecosystems. Possible areas of exploration might include: the scientific revolution; North-American environmental history; global commodities, imperialism and the environment; and science, magic, and rationality. With reference to historical examples, these courses will seek to nuance concepts such as ‘science’, ‘rationality’, and ‘nature’ and also to examine broad conventional historical narratives such as ‘disenchantment’, ‘enlightenment’, ‘industrialization’ or ‘globalization’.

Offered: June 28 – July 19, MTWRF 1:30-3:50

History Matters: Health and Society

HIST 165.3(03)

Instructor: Fedir Razumenko

Courses in this series examine how historians have understood the complex relationship between health, society, and historical change. Health is used as a vehicle for understanding political, social and cultural change throughout history. Topics range from antiquity the birth of Galenic healing through western and non-western traditions that have guided our understandings of bodies, pain, gender, and power and into the modern era of health and medicine with the rise of professional medicine, ethics, experimentation and institutionalized healing. Health is widely defined to capture experiences that fall outside the traditional doctor-patient relationship, and to explore issues including: mental health; the politics of healthcare; health economies; the health professions; disease’s power to shape human history. These courses rely on a variety of sources: food and nutrition, to medical treatises, patient narratives, activist and anti-medical establishment texts, artwork, and institutional reports, and a rich historical tradition of examining health and medicine and its influence on human history. Possible areas of exploration include: madness; the body; pain; health and disease.